


The Nature of Things

by motleystitches (furius)



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Erik is not a Happy Bunny, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, Kink Meme, M/M, Mind Control, Mind Games, Non Consensual, Threats
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-18
Updated: 2013-02-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 16:34:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/689096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furius/pseuds/motleystitches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During a summoning, the demon Charles refuses enslavement. Instead, he becomes both the hurt and the comfort for Erik the Mage and later, Erik, the King of Genosha.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Anon at http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/7736.html?thread=15075128t15075128.
> 
> WARNING: The following fic contains violent noncon and unrealistic depiction of Stockholm syndrome. DO NOT read if non-con, dubcon, emotional/physical abuse are your triggers. This is a dark fic. I, however, do promise a happy-ish ending.

He is beyond reproach, a holy thing. Erik, Magister Magnus, has been blessed from birth. It's evident in the flush of his smooth face, the variegated green of his eyes and the reddish tint of his dark honey hair, damp with sweat.

The room is aglow with candles, scented with the odors of sacred oils and rare woods. Charles closes his eyes and _breathes_. The air is thick and cloyingly sweet. And beneath that he tastes the human odor of Erik, the greatest mage of the age, fire contained in a vessel that has only ever wanted Charles in his mortal life. 

"Don't fear me," Charles tells Erik, drawing his lips back from his teeth, "look into my eyes and tell me that we are not drawn to each other."

"I have summoned you. I hereby command you, demon," Erik says.

"Am I a genie," Charles asks, stretching his arms and rotates his wrists, awareness settling into his body; it has been very long since he has been free, "to grant you your heart's desire?"

Erik ignores the question. He glances at a parchment by his hand and says, in the language of Charles's childhood, the syllables familiar and welcoming, the words to bind Charles to this earth, to Erik, and his will.

"And what is your will?" Charles inclines his head in consent. There is blood flowing through his veins, muscle and bone to contain his strength- the finite corporeality strange and stirring.

"The world," Erik says, "let me have the power to shape and mold it and power over humanity".

"And how shall you have that power: all the kings of the world at your command, endless wealth, deepest wisdom, everlasting victory, the most beautiful woman to do as you will? Or merely, Magister Maximus Mundum?" All the vanities of mortality and mages have been the same.

Erik's uncertainty echoes in his head. His handsome features twists at the suspicion being mocked. His eyes widen as Charles steps through the first perfectly drawn circle on the ground. "Stop," he commands.

"How do you imprison me when you are free?" Charles steps over the next circle. "I have come to you as you have asked." He lingers at the boundary of the third circle. "Of all the world and of all the realms beyond it, I alone answered your summoning."

Erik's heart beats quickly. He swallows and raises his hand, an imperious gesture, a beautiful hand, the fingers long and shapely: "I command you to stop."

"And you have bound me to you," Charles says and steps over the line, his toes scuffing the chalk and disturbing the mess of iron and salt. He is very close; he can see Erik's pulse, the delicate throb of pale skin. He leans in. Erik's does not move as Charles whispers by his ear: "All your life, you have wanted me. Your years of study, your years of loneliness end, Erik, Magister Magnus, great mage, you're not alone, because I am here, now."

"You refuse me," Erik says. His back remain straight though fear and hope war on his face. Fascinated, Charles reaches up and traces the line from forehead to lip, astonished by the perfect geometry of bone and warmth of skin. His licks his own mouth. Erik's gaze follows the movement.

"I refuse you nothing," Charles says, "and you shall not refuse me." He wants a kiss, a taste of skin, a press and entanglement of senses. The longing suffuses the flesh. "Magister magnus meum," he murmurs, " _my great mage_ ," but Erik steps away and there is only air.

"I-" he starts, confused, "I summoned you."

"How do you summon a demon?" Charles asks. "The proper incantations, the correct spells, a meticulously planned surgery of words and sounds and smells and a death and a life." All the metal in the room begin moving, Erik's elemental gift responding even consciously; his hope is curdling in the air. Charles smiles. In the mirror at the end of the room, he sees his aspect, a face and body promising pleasure if not necessarily bliss. He looks at Erik again, pitying, "Why am I a demon?"

"You fell," Erik replies. A suit of armor draws its sword, a brass candelabrum flies into the middle of the room, then their movements are suspended.

"I fall," Charles lowers his hand from the side of his head. Erik struggles, his muscles straining, but Charles has pinned him with a thought as easily as he has wrested his control over metal. "Demons never stop falling. I answered, because you have offered me my next surrender, but not with words or drawing or corpses and blood. I am here, Erik, because you are my temptation."

"Corruptions of power," Erik hisses, "release me and we can have the world at our feet, let humanity-"

Charles shakes his head. "What do I care for the politics of the world? I have had reign of it as a whim. All the centuries and all the kingdoms are a blur, but you, my friend, are unique. Your soul," --the fires from the cold braziers flare-- "your body," --the dark magister robes Erik wore falls part and the seams of his tunic rip. Charles drinks in the sight, the flashes of skin and contour of muscle. Temptation after temptation- the endless possibilities of perfection. "You yourself as mine." Charles crooks a finger. For this is summoning, this is binding: I am yours and you are mine.

Erik moves forward, helpless.

There is art to this he has forgotten. Charles' grip on Erik's hair is a little too tight, his hand on his jaw a little too hard. Their teeth clash. Charles digs in his thumb and Erik's mouth open. Charles thrusts his tongue inside and _licks._

Slowly, Charles explores the soft smooth ridge of the roof of Erik's mouth, the give of the inside his cheek, and wants deeper, hotter. The unexpected ecstasy overwhelms the lack of response for Erik is within his arms, immortal soul and corruptible body, a living furnace of yielding flesh. Charles nips at Erik's bottom lip. The metallic tang of blood coats his tongue as Erik makes a strangled sound. Their tongues writhe against each other, slickly serpentine. Erik makes another sound, this time deep and low from his chest. A dull roar echoes in Charles' ears and stars on the edge of his vision appear as if he has entered that almost the height of air where ice crystals pretended softness and no human can draw breath.

Ah, breath. Charles ends the kiss and inhales deeply the humid air between them. Erik's cheekbones are splashed with a smudge of red that even the shadows cannot conceal.

He is swallowing rapidly, making a series of noises that cannot coalesce into words or perhaps Charles is no longer capable of understanding. He puts a hand to Erik's throat, feels the frantic movement of his adam's apple, the softness of that thin layer of skin above flexible cartilage.

Erik's is beautiful. He is perfect. He is terrified.

Charles lets him go and almost loses him as Erik shoves against his chest. Stumbling, Charles reaches out and locks his hand on one wrist, pulling him even as he pushes out with one leg. Erik trips and Charles lets the momentum carry them to the ground.

At the sound of pain and the the closeness of their bodies, only separated by their clothes, his hips bracketing the other man's, a frisson of heat runs up Charles back then down his front, pooling low in his belly, in his groin.

"Stop," Erik manages, "please stop. I release you." His thin mouth is red and a little swollen.

Charles bends his head down until their breaths mingle. Erik twists his head away. "Dear Erik, dear Erik," he soothes, and Erik turns to look at him again. "How do you bind? how do you cleave?" He is a teacher, magister magisterium and his pupil is below him, astonished and then his eyes narrowed, skeptical. "How can you break a bond and promise so easily? What promise then, is there? Do you know nothing of humanity? Nothing of desire?"

Erik starts twisting beneath him. He is taller and should be stronger, but he's winded, chest still heaving.

Charles thrusts down, the friction unexpectedly exciting. "All your studies have taught you- spells and enchantments, charms and wards, _rerum naturam expandere dictis_ but not that all words and spells are weighed in the body, its experience of the tangible world?" Erik writhes _deliciously_. "Your manipulation of the elements-" Charles eyes flutter closed briefly. He gasps, tilts back his neck, let his body arch in a long line. "Am I not beautiful for you? You have wanted me long enough and I came for you to fulfill all your desires, offer you all my secrets."

"Let me go," Erik turns his head tries to move away, but Charles bends and grasps him by the shoulder, smoothes his hands over the lean arms until he has him by both wrists over his head.

"Let me have you," Charles let their breaths tangle, his languages merging together, "let me inside you. I want you. I need you. You're all I have on earth." With his other hand he reaches between them to the laces of Erik's light trousers, already loosened from the broken seams. "Let me see you," he says, "and you have me."

Charles jerks back as a knife slices across his vision. He loosens his hold on Erik, who tries to throw him off again. Falling to his side, Charles hears the the knife clattering to the stone floor beside him. He holds Erik still with his mind and catches the tail of an alien thought.

Charles snatches up the knife and then drops it. It's the knife for the ritual. He recognizes the runes and the letters. They had carved a prison for him and Erik has been reading the words in his mind, attempting to break them apart. Arousal can so easily transmute to anger. "Open your legs," Charles demands.

"Stop," Erik cries. "I release you. Our bond is forfeit. I command nothing of you." He adds, almost brokenly, "I'm sorry," but his legs remain closed.

So be it. "I command otherwise," Charles answers him. He strips Erik casually, insinuating his hands between the lean thighs, dragging down the linen down the length of the long legs and then waits. He balances the knife low on Erik's taut stomach, an inch above where hair starts to thicken above his crotch. He drags the blade across the skin, watching the pink line of the trail, the odd tiny broken hairs. "I can slit you here, an inch or two, and I could have you, as wet as warm as you are. It wouldn't even be fatal. Tomorrow and tomorrow awaits, but I don't want you hurt."

"Why?" Erik's voice is small. The stone is cold. Charles moves closer. Erik’s warm and his face taste bitter with ash and sweat.

"Erik," Charles says, "let me have you," he presses his knife a little harder and with his other hand reaches below the arch of muscle on Erik's hip for the vulnerable flesh now exposed to view. He weighs it in his hand, strokes it, root to stem to tip, before wrapping his fingers around. He starts gently, moving his hand up and down until the shaft starts to thicken, growing hard and full, curving upwards. Saliva pools in Charles' mouth. Erik lets out an involuntary whimper as his hips arcs up against the pressure of Charles’ mind; the first bead of blood forms on his skin. Erik's legs part, all instinctual.

Charles lets go of the knife, he reaches under to find the entrance to Erik's body, warm and a bit slippery with sweat, thrusts his finger inside him and twists. Erik tries to squirm away, but Charles sits between his legs, kneels, palms the inside of Erik's thighs from knee to the swell of his ass and pushes until Erik's spread before him. He extends two fingers inside his body, then widens it with his thumb before he withdraws, not knowing whether the burning sensation in his skin is his own or Erik's. Settling both hands, almost reverently, on the other man's waist, he lowers his own trousers and pushes inside. Erik is tight and tense and the heat is tremendous. Yet, so close and inside him- another kind of kiss.

"You don't want me hurt," Erik reminds him, breaking through his haze. Charles looks at him, eyes half-lidded. Then white edge of Erik's teeth is digging into his lips, his face strained. "It hurts." Something's stinging his arm. Vaguely, Charles' aware that he has let Erik's arms go and his nails are digging into Charles' arms.

"Less," Charles says absently, pushing in the rest of the way, gasping at the hot clench of the body beneath him. Erik lets out a stifled cry, then nothing else as Charles pulls almost all the way out and thrusts in again until he's buried in Erik's body. Charles groans loudly, withdraws, and then slams in, harder. Then he just plows into Erik steadily. Pleasure builds as he remembers, the swells of indefinable pressure that ripples through his body, livens his nerves. Each thrust seems more perfect than the last, the purpose of this body is surely to be joined with another, more precious and more desired than devout prayer. Erik's skin gleams slightly with sweat, his wet lips part, letting out soft gasps with every snap of Charles' hips. The hunger builds and Charles stomach tightens and then all of a sudden- nothing. Erik grunts as Charles fills him. But for Charles, it leaves a ringing inside his head and a strange dissatisfaction. His body is nervous, as if still unfinished. Charles withdraws and looks down. Erik is staring upwards at him, blinking rapidly. His lashes are spiky with tears, his eyes molten green. He looks as if he wants to speak, but he chokes on his own words. When he realises Charles is staring, he closes his eyes.

"Turn around," Charles says, annoyed, and pulls at the fabric of Erik's shirt. It tears with an obscene volume in the silence and reveals Erik's naked back, bowed and untouched by another, sacrosanct except for Charles. The sacrifice. Mages and their vanities- body and mind honed for the ephemera and the unsure.

Erik's shoulders and back and ass are red, abraded from the rough ground. He is thin from this angle, his pale shoulderblades seep blood. Charles' own knees ache slightly, and chips of tiny stones cling to his palms. He dusts his hand and looks at the Erik beneath him: lean and strong and a little wrecked and still beautiful. "Kneel, legs apart." This time, he meets no resistance. Erik's movement are sluggish, but Charles is content to watch the graceful distend and extend of muscles and sinew. He wants to examine that body and will, know the difference that has called him here, to know and to possess it. Charles fans his hand on the curve of Erik's ass, blood warm, perfect globes that begged to be touched and bitten. He slides his hand into damp shadow of Erik’s crack. It's a slippery mess. He pulls the cheeks apart. Erik's hole is red and swollen, overflowing with Charles come, trickling down the inside of his thighs, the milky issue tinged with threads of blood.

"I lied," Charles tells Erik and brushes his finger across the declivity, loving the way Erik flinches as he smears the mess upwards, scooping it a little back into Erik's body. He gentles his voice: "Why did you not expect it? I am always honest with you. I fall to temptations."

He pushes in his fingers again past the slightly loosened ring of muscle, soft with use. Erik body lurches forward as they twist inside him, moving deeper. Charles leans forward as Erik tries to crawl away from him. “Stay,” Charles orders, reaching around to cup Erik with his other hand, squeezing his sac until Erik’s begins to pant slightly. Charles rolls the weight in his hand, then tightens his grip, smoothing his fingers firmly against it until he maps its rounded contents by the stretch of skin. Erik breaths hitches, he squirms, curls up on himself, which makes his ass rise higher. He is hot and slick inside, and walls of his body was finally easing slightly so that Charles can feel it pulse against the sensitive pads of his fingertips every time he reaches in.

It is a very trying position. Erik is face down on the ground, no longer trying to get away, but the layer of pain and reluctance is infecting Charles' thoughts the longer he holds him by will alone. Charles stabs his fingers inwards. Erik's sudden cry is so surprising that Charles releases him as Erik's body thrusts backwards, back onto Charles' fingers, twice quickly, the second time he cries out again, his body shivering in the aftermath, as if making an effort to remain still. It's too late. Charles remembers. The tip of his finger searches out the spot and pokes it. Erik's beautiful body tenses. Charles does it again, harder. Erik shudders violently. Charles' other hand, trapped between Erik's legs, starts stroking the quivering stomach muscles. Erik's cock bump against the back of his hand with every movement until Charles holds him.

"Your body's hungry for this, isn't it?" Charles murmurs, his thumb sliding slowly over the delicate skin at the head of Erik’s cock, already proffering wet evidence of pleasure. Erik moans. "You must be a very a good mage, to call me here,” Charles whispers, furling his hand. “Power is such a tawdry thing, but innocence, beauty, because you _are_ lovely- did none of your teachers tell you when they see your promise, what promise they saw? Isn't it awful, to know all the pleasures only through words, other people’s narratives, and never dare to think it would be for you?" 

His ring finger slots beside the other two inside Erik’s body, not easily, but flesh always accommodates with a little pressure and Erik craves his touch, moving backwards with each thrust, then forwards again seeking Charles’ grip, which has become slippery as Erik’s own body gives further into the pleasure, desiring it-

Enough. Then Charles withdraws, watches bemusedly as Erik moves back into the air, then startles into stillness. The muscles in his buttocks tense and tremble with the effort.

Charles slaps them. The sound clapped more air than flesh, nonetheless blood rises to the surface of the pale skin, a tint of tantalizing rose. Charles licks his lips and does it again. The colour darkens temptingly. Erik moves, scrambling away, then is still. Charles forgets the sting in his hand, curiosity compelling him into repeating the motion when one arm tires. Every strike paints the skin darker. He stops when Erik’s ass is bloomingly red, carrying the imprint of his hands. Charles wants to leave an imprint of his teeth, but for pity of marring that smooth surface, that lovely shade. Instead, he fondles the swells of flesh then pinches with thumb and forefinger, his nails catching at the skin. Erik bites off a whimper at the third pinch.

"Get up, Erik." When Erik refuses, Charles stands up and casually kicks his shoulder so that Erik rolls over. Almost all the green in his eyes have disappeared; his pupils are wide and dark. A fervent blush trails from his face down his torso. Erik is still hard, the wine red strain of his cock toward his belly prominent above the tight stretch of the skin of his sac below.

Charles licks his lower lip and looks around. His sight settles at the altar. Erik follows his gaze then closes his eyes, inhaling deeply, his hands by his hands quivering a little.

"What? No?" Charles smiles. "Not yet," he answers then asks, "Where do you sleep? A bed would be more comfortable, I think, or shall you lie on these stones again?" He laughs, remembers Erik’s asceticism. He gentles his voice, murmuring softly like a secret, “I sleep in this body. Will you sleep with me?”

Erik swallows. He doesn’t want to believe Charles, nonetheless, he is hoping and hope is betraying him. His eyes and his power threads across the cavern to a nondescript door. A lock tumbles open, then the hinges turn.


	2. Chapter 2

"Come on, then," Charle says, standing. He flexes his hand: four fingers and a thumb, to build and just strong enough to hurt. Something in his thought, in his expression, or perhaps Erik finally realises he loses nothing if he gives in just slightly, Erik stands, grimacing. He is not graceful, but Charles smiles at the awkward movement, the obvious discomfort in Erik’s walk as he lets Charles’ into his room. It anchors him somehow, to see Erik affected, stirred by Charles to find the world and even himself uncertain.

Erik leads him to an iron bed, a copper basin and a table heaped with candles and scrolls- Charles does a turn, sees the mirror and smiles.

“Here is my room,” Erik’s voice is tense, rasping. “Here is my bed, but it only fits one.” He is angry and tired. His bare feet shuffles on the floor.

“So lie on your bed,” Charles says easily.

“Let me go,” says Erik. “You’ve had your sport of my body. I know I cannot command you and am a fool to have tried.”

“If you cannot command me, what must you do?” Charles asks, playful.

“I shall ask then, would you let me go?”

Charles raises an eyebrow. “A better answer, though incomplete. Are we peers? Colleagues? Friends? That you could ask.” Mock disbelief shades his voice.

“You could’ve said you wanted me to beg,” Erik says, bitter. He has been marked from birth; a god among men; at least, so it has been in his heart. He has never begged anyone in his life and meant it.

“I _would_ have you beg,” Charles says, “but not merely because I want it. Lie on your bed.”

Erik sighs, as if the words are to be dismissed. “And would you let _me_ sleep?” 

Left alone, he would sleep, Charles is sure of it, all the while dreaming of revenge, tallying his errors and victories, thinking what has been taken can be used to make another bargain. Charles doesn’t bother conceal his amusement. Erik’s arousal has gone, but his body is still flushed, craving the promise of fulfilment now it knows its appetite. “Do you want to find out?” he asks. “Go lie on the bed, close your eyes.”

The words hardened, so does Erik’s expression. His mouth thins, his jaws grows taut, the shadows beneath his cheekbones shift but he lifts the blankets and climbs into the bed, settling on his side, his back toward the wall. He glares at Charles.

Charles crouches near him. Erik flinches as Charles smoothes his hand over the matted hair, so soft around his fingers, and drifts over the softer tendrils curling around Erik’s ears, his nape, the nervous pulse beats against Charle hand. “Why are you so afraid of me?”

“It’s what you want. You’ve taken-” Erik regrets the choice of word. Would mages only admit that they guard their virtues and pride more jealously than any young girl in her father’s house, the world would move faster by their will.

“What have I taken?” Charles hand slips around to rest upon the small hollow of skin between his collarbones.

“You _tortured_ me,” Erik tells him.

Charles frowns. “Torture you?” His voice softens, seeing that Erik believes his own words, “When you’re all I have? When we’re bound together? Oh darling,” he falters, holds the edge of the blanket and eases himself into the bed while Erik watches him warily, his back pressed to the wall. He grabs Charles hand when he feels it on his face.

“You used my body for your pleasure,” Erik says. “Pain didn’t stop you. You were happy with it."

Charles wants to laugh. “If I only wanted pleasure from your body,” he studies the broad brow, the distracting lashes, the forest eyes, the swollen mouth; there are beautifully drawn shadows in that face- a Phidian dream, except for the faintest scratches of time etched around the eyes. “Not your soul, not your mind, not your thoughts or dreams, then I only need your body.” Blanching, Erik presses himself further against the wall. The metal in the room is rattling.

“But you were there and I wanted you and you wanted me,” Charles reminds him, gentle. “I am here to tell you the secrets you do not know. The world yields to harmony and you will have no power unless you gives over to that conjoined state of soul and mind and body,” Charles says, slips his hand down Erik’s chest. "And you want me."

Erik’s breaths hitch as a nail scratches over a nipple, then again as Charles’ hand closes around him. It responds even more quickly than the last time, as if there has been no interruption. Erik closes his eyes, his throat stretches as he parts his mouth in a breathless sound.

“No-” Or Erik does not say it, for his breathing is ragged.

“Is it torture?” Charles smiles as Erik rocks his hips forward. This is much better. Their lower bodies are close, he is hurtling toward a nicer sort of pleasure. He hikes his leg across Erik’s hips so he can wrap around his hands around both of them, pulling himself and Erik. It’s damp between their bodies, but not enough to be comfortable. He lets go and licks his own palm before resuming.

Charles quickens his pace and Erik opens his eyes and looks into his. Charles always has beautiful eyes. They seduced and enchanted, persuaded and mesmerized. Erik stares into them and says no more as Charles kisses him, hard, just on the lips, then slides his mouth to his neck until he presses tightly there, suckling at the skin.

Erik clamp his hands Charles’ shoulders as Charles works them both, breathing rough with every marvelous rude movement, palm and fingers just large enough to fit them both, and desperate with effort- squeezing tighter withe very stroke for the mind-tearing cut of pleasure. Time can stop for bliss. It slows as the arousal begins warming then burning white hot, pulling a kind of incandescence out of their bodies.

Erik gasps at the end, right by his ear, a sharp hiss of air followed by a long sigh. Charles uncurls his hand from Erik's hair, drawing back to survey the darkening bruise on his neck, the mingle of sweat or tears on his face, the confusion of his glance. Curious, he looks down at their lengths, soft, just exposed by his fist then relaxes the hold he has around Erik. Charles draws a finger through the viscous liquid between them and smears it across Erik's chest. The rhythm of its rise and fall slows gradually. Erik's eyelids are half-lowered; eventually, they fall fully even as Charles kisses his face, laps slightly at the trace of salt on his cheekbones. 

Erik’s body slump against Charles, bony and uncomfortable, but Charles bears the novelty of the weight for a moment before he gives in and arrange one of Erik’s arms to lie across his hip. Erik twitches slightly in their new embrace but is otherwise unprotesting. Charles yawns. After a while, the blanket above them begins to chaff. Charles moves off the bed and picks at the sticky residue on his skin. His skin erupts into goosebumps as he breaks the thin layer of ice over the water in the basin.

It's too cold to simply scoop the water on himself, but he can't see a cloth. The beeswax candles, however, let off a strong light and when he lights enough of them, as well as the small brazier of coal, they soon warmed the small room. Charles finds the the linen stacked neatly in a corner, soaks them in the water, and wants Erik's power to warm the basin as he wrings the cloth. He turns to the figure on the bed, curled and cacooned under the blanket. Erik is different asleep. Charles has not seen the peace in dreams since he has been small and childhood is so long ago...

Setting a candle in the holder, Charles finds his way to the bed. There are dark shadows under Erik's eyes from the nights of vigil before the summoning. His mouth is a stubborn red line. Charles leans closer, pulls at the blanket until it exposes a white page of skin. The cool air hits Erik's chest and he lets out a whimper, but remains asleep.

Erik can be asleep, just like this, forever, slumbering and not knowing who is beside him.

Under the candlelight, his soft pink nipple is pebbling with an unexpected clarity, colored like sugared fruit. Charles licks his teeth, peers closer, then drags the damp cloth down lightly muscled chest, plastering the wiry hairs flat against the skin. Erik shivers. His arms come up to curl around himself, but lands against Charles' shoulders. It startles him. The candleholder tips, a bead of melted wax overflows, and Erik lets out a cry. The body beneath Charles tenses, unmoving, as Charles continues to wipe it down. Erik's awake but says nothing.

Erik is something very beautiful. If not his magic, then the phyiscal grace of the flesh that holds it. Charles climbs on top of the bed, between Erik's legs. The scrap of the copper basin and its stand across the floor set Erik's heart to beating fast again. His eyes are forests in the mists.

"Shh," Charles murmurred, dipping the cloth into the lukewarm water, heated from the basin with Erik's ability. Erik's sex is long and soft nestled against his thigh. Charles caresses it through the cloth and it stiffens a little. He drags the wet cloth down to Erik's sac, then lifts it to clean the remnants of their last coupling. Erik's breathing has become harsher, a pant that Charles' body remembers fondly. He shifts on the bed. The flame wavers. The sheen of water or perhaps sweat on Erik's skin making it look more than skin, the body beneath more than human.

Charles looks upwards at Erik, who gazes at him with an expression of bleak anger.

"Erik," Charles says.

"Stop-"

"I'm not a dream," Charles continues. He puts the cloth back in the basin and touches Erik's hip, rubs his thumb in the shadows of where the firm muscles lay artfully sloped.

"A nightmare then," Erik mutters.

"Still of your own making," Charles answers, lightly enough. "You wanted me. You called for me in the dark. I heard your voice and searched for you and found you."

"And you will now destroy me."

Charles laughs against Erik's chest, then looks upward at the stubborn jut of Erik's jaw. "Dare I?" Charles asks, watching Erik's silent answer. He kisses his chest above the heart, flecks the wax away. "Does that destroy you? That you know I would not. I've hurt you a little, perhaps, but you reached me across the dark and I came across it, in a body for you."

"A body to rape me," Erik attempts to sit. "All because I took you away from the dark."

"Shh," Charles says, then tips the candleholder a little more until it overflows. Erik hisses as the wax hits the skin. The liquid hardens almost instantly. "Does it hurt? It's all flesh. Is it torture? There's no pleasure in it. It'll not destroy you. You expected a little pain, I think, but the agony of my darkness shall not be yours."

"Because you want me to be your whore!" Erik spits the word.

"I can keep you slumbering," Charles says softly, "and mark and pierce you until the pleasure of the body tires or bores or annoys me then I can sell you to fund my existence in this world." He keeps his voice gentle. "You are very lovely, exotic to some. There are places they prefer a sleeping body to one awake and protesting. And asleep, you would be dreaming, sometimes half-waking to strangers and be a stranger of your own condition."

He keeps his weight heavy across Erik's legs and moves his hand a little more. "People do strange things to possess it. Your teacher taught you disdain and pride and kept you for himself." Charles watches the wax spill down Erik’s chest, unfurling like a white flower across his chest; the muscles of abdomen shift as the wax flows lower, toward valleys inside his thighs.

"But I'm no more cruel or mad than the moon and you're fairer and greater than any shepherd or anyone else I've known," Charles says, placing the candle on the mattress. He licks his thumb and forefinger and extinguish the flame. "How can you be my whore I do not want you to live, dreaming some other life. You've dreamed enough, that is why I have come. Why do you not believe me?"

"You know nothing about me. You want my body, my powers, and have shown you how easily you can have both-" He gasps the last word as Charles begin to smooth his hand over the soft wax, peeling them back where they’ve hardened. The skin below is red and tender, hot to the touch.

"I want you," Charles confesses, letting his fingertips trail over the skin, the muscles beneath quivering at every touch. He relents, laps at them with his tongue to soothe him. He looks up at Erik from beneath his lashes. "I want you. I want the parts of you visible, the parts of you unknown and strange even to yourself.”


End file.
